Five important lessons learned from the 2008 Indianapolis 500

Danica Patrick felt like anything but the SI cover athlete after an accident with Ryan Briscoe knocked her out of the Indy 500. AP

Five things we learned on Sunday in the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500, one of the most significant days in the race's history.

1. The buzz is coming back to Indy.

Ever since IndyCar absorbed the Champ Car series in February, which ended the 13-year cold war in open-wheel racing, there's been a spate of positive news for the series. Graham Rahal, at 19, became the youngest driver to ever win an Indy race when he took the checkers at St. Petersburg. Danica Patrick won her first race in Japan. And new sponsors have been coming to the series like never before; in fact, the IRL is close to landing a title sponsor for 2009 and beyond.

All of this has created a newfound sense of excitement in Indy racing, and this was evident on Sunday at the Brickyard. Though the track doesn't release official attendance figures, most in the press room put the number at 275,000. This was clearly the biggest 500 crowd in over a decade, and while the race wasn't a thing of beauty -- the first 100 laps felt like one extended caution period -- the weekend must be judged an overwhelming success for IndyCar simply because people are now paying attention to open-wheel racing again. Can the series sustain this momentum? Check out the magazine this week for my piece on what IndyCar needs to do to continue to grow its sport and take on NASCAR, the 500-pound gorilla in motorsports in America.

2. It wasn't meant to be for Danica.

Two hours after the race I hung out with Danica and her family at her motor coach that was parked in the infield. As she munched on a piece of peanut butter toast, she replayed her pit road collision with Ryan Briscoe in her mind, and she was still irate. To review: With 29 laps left in the race, Patrick exited her pit stall. She got back out onto pit road cleanly and was in the outside lane when Briscoe left his pit. But Briscoe came out hot, his tires slipped, and he rammed into the left rear of Patrick's car, which broke its suspension, ending Patrick's quest to become the first woman to win the Indy 500. She finished 22nd.

Yet even if Patrick hadn't been involved in an accident, she very likely wouldn't have taken the checkered flag on Sunday. "I probably would have ended up fourth or fifth," she told me. "No one had anything for [race winner Scott] Dixon. He was just too fast for everyone."

After the race I received several I-told-you-so e-mails from friends and readers who blasted SI's decision to put Danica on the cover two weeks ago. One e-mailer wrote "No She Can't!" -- in reference to our cover line "Yes She Can!" -- while another reader wrote, "When are you going to realize that Danica is nothing more than a creation of the media hype machine?"

I'll grant you this: Danica certainly gets more than her fair share of media attention. Does it go overboard? Yes, at times it does. But I -- along with my editor -- felt that Danica warranted a cover for a few reasons: She'd just become the first woman to ever win an Indy-style race; her backstory is as compelling as anyone's in motorsports today, and it has largely been untold; and she's had a history of success at Indy, which made her a credible threat to win the race. It didn't work out, but then again, maybe it was that dreaded cover curse, which was mentioned to Danica, oh, about 1,000 times in the days leading up to the race.

3. The IRL championship is Scott Dixon's to lose.

For the entire month of May, everyone at Indy was chasing Dixon. He dominated the speed charts during practice sessions, won the pole, then blew away the field during the race, leading more than half the laps to win his first Indy 500. None of this comes as a shock, of course. Dixon has been the fastest driver all season on the Indy circuit. He won the season-opening event in Homestead, Fla., and, if not for some pit road and fuel-mileage issues, he'd have won two other races as well. Currently first in the points standings, Dixon will be very, very tough to beat for the title this season.

4. Marco Andretti will win this race -- someday.

With 70 laps to go on Sunday, Andretti, the grandson of Marco and son of Michael, was in the lead. But then, on lap 153 of 200, all the leaders came to pit road under caution. Andretti's crew opted to make an adjustment to his rear-wing to create better aerodynamics. This proved to be a mistake: Because the wing adjustment took extra time, Andretti came out of the pits in fourth place. He never got back to the front. He finished third.

"[Marco] has his arms around this place and he's capable of winning," said Mario after the race, noting that his grandson finished second in the 500 last year. "That's what [his finish] tells you. It's going to come. God willing, it's going to come. When you're that competitive, things have to go your way sooner or later."

5. Team Penske was surprisingly quiet.

No owner in the IRL has had more success at Indianapolis Motor Speedway than Roger Penske, who has won 14 times at Indy. Last Thursday night I sat across the table from Penske during a dinner at Ruth's Chris steakhouse in downtown Indy, and he was as confident as ever that one of his drivers would take the checkered flag. "I like our chances," Penske said. "I always do here. Our track record speaks for itself."

Alas, on Sunday the Penske duo of Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe didn't make much noise, except for Briscoe taking out Patrick. Castroneves, a two-time winner of the 500, finished fourth while Briscoe wound up 23rd. Any chance that Castroneves had at winning vanished when his front wing was damaged as a result of a crash by Marty Roth. This threw off the aerodynamics of his car, and he simply didn't have the speed to catch Dixon.

In fact, it doesn't look like anyone in the IRL will have the speed to catch Dixon this season.